Iconic
by alcimines
Summary: Logan (Wolverine) awakens in a strange, new, world. Peter Parker (Spiderman) is there to help him. In the process learns something about nature of the universe - and meets some new friends.


ICONIC

"C'mon, Logan. Wake up." The voice was quiet, but very familiar. So was the scent.

Logan's eyes groggily flickered open. He had a splitting headache. He was also had the all-too-familiar aches and pains that came from sleeping on cold concrete.

Rolling dazedly onto his back, Logan looked around. He was lying in a dead-end alleyway. A dumpster was parked near the back wall. However, there was none of the usual debris - aluminum cans, newspapers, broken bottle glass - that you would normally expect to see in an alley. The stench said "city", but there was something wrong... although he couldn't quite define what it was.

Peter was crouched nearby, but not too nearby. In fact, he was just outside of the range of a sudden slash from Logan's claws. That was a smart move, Logan thought fuzzily to himself. Not really necessary, but still very smart - kinda like the way Scott would think things through. Peter had always impressed Logan that way. He had both brains and solid instincts and that was a good combination.

"What the hell?" Logan croaked through parched lips. His mouth felt as dry as a desert.

The number of times in his long life that someone had helped Logan get to his feet could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. The last time was after he got hit in the chest with a rocket-propelled grenade. But now Peter leaned over and grabbed Logan by the shoulders and hauled him straight up. Logan's three-hundred-plus pounds of muscle, bone, and adamantium didn't even slow Peter down.

Logan brusquely disentangled himself from Peter's grip - and then almost fell. After taking a pair of stumbling steps backwards, he finally ended up leaning against the nearest wall. Taking a deep breath, and then another one, Logan felt the familiar tightening tension within his body as it started to regenerate itself. His healing factor was having to work pretty hard, but Logan didn't see or smell blood or any other sign of injury.

What had happened to him?

Peter was now standing as he watched Logan closely, but Logan ignored him and glanced towards the mouth of the alleyway. He could see a low brick building on the other side of a busy street. And beyond that was the partial skyline of a big city. But Logan didn't recognize the buildings and there was still something wrong with the damn smell. This place was clean. Too clean. Clean in a way that no modern city could possibly manage.

Shaking his head, Logan looked back at Peter. He was wearing street clothes - shoes, a pair of khaki pants, and a nondescript short-sleeved shirt with a collar. Looking down at himself, Logan saw that he was in boots, blue-jeans, and a t-shirt.

"Okay, Pete, where the hell are we?" Logan asked tiredly.

There was something sad in Peter's eyes as he replied, "It's called Metropolis."

* * *

The bar was small and a bit seedy and the customers were mostly nondescript working-stiffs. The bartender was a worn-looking blonde woman who was on the wrong side of forty, but still attractive in a mature kind of way. However, she wasn't the talkative sort and at the moment Logan was grateful for that.

Most importantly, the bar had a grill. Logan was working on his third hamburger and he was feeling quite a bit better for it. Pete was sipping from a beer. He had paid for everything, since Logan didn't have a wallet on him.

Logan drained his beer and sat it back on the bar. Without asking, the bartender threw it away, popped the cap off another longneck, and put it in front of him. It was Logan's fourth.

"Okay, let's take it from the top," Logan said warily. "You say this town is called Metropolis. Problem is - there's no such place. Not in the real world, at least."

A smile flashed across Peter's face and quickly vanished. Then he leaned forward and said quietly, "Before I say anything else, I want you to remember that we've both seen a lot of weird stuff - like that 'House of M' thing. What I'm about to tell you is something like that."

Logan nodded while his eyes stayed locked on Peter's face. Back during the 'House of M', Logan had been the one who chased Peter down after Peter found out what was really going on. That hadn't been a good time for Peter. Now it looked like the roles were reversed.

"What do you know about Jung? Dr. Carl Jung?" Peter continued.

Logan blinked in surprise, "Some professor-type with a lot of crazy theories about how people think. He was the kind of guy that Charlie and Hank could spend a lot of time talking about."

Peter seemed pleased by Logan's response, "Good answer. One thing that Jung liked to talk about was the 'collective unconsciousness'. I'm simplifying a lot, but the basic idea is that an individual human mind doesn't exist in isolation. Rather, there's something that connects them all. Jung thought of it as an underlying pattern of human beliefs. But it's actually much more real than that. It's a psychic...thing... that's almost alive - and it connects all human minds."

Logan shrugged, "Any telepath will go along with that, Pete. Hell, I've heard something like what you just said from Charlie, Jeanie, Betsy, and Rachel. Betsy likes to call it 'The Force' and then start quoting George Lucas."

Peter paused and then seemed to choose his words very carefully, "Your friends are right. The collective unconsciousness is very real and very powerful - in fact, it's a lot more powerful than we've ever dreamed. In many ways, it controls the thing we call reality."

Logan gave Peter a long, narrow look. Then he picked up his beer and took a drink as he processed what Peter had just said, "All right. I suppose that's no crazier than the idea that Wanda Maximoff or Frank Richards can fiddle with reality using just their brains. Hell, it actually makes more sense that six billion minds are more powerful than one mutant mind. But where's all this going, Pete?"

Taking a deep breath, Peter dove in, "We - you and I - didn't start off as real people, Logan. Instead, we were fictional characters. Characters in comic books."

Logan's expression was frankly skeptical, but he didn't say anything.

Peter took that as a sign to continue. "At first, there were just a few hundred thousand people who read those comics. But comics have a generational cycle of new, younger people coming in as previous readers leave. New readers learned about us, but the old readers didn't forget - we were stuck in their heads as a memorable part of their younger years. So within a generation or so, the number of people who'd read about you, me, and... the others like us... numbered in the tens of millions."

Peter paused to give Logan a chance to say something. Logan's only response was to take another drink from his beer.

Peter went on, "Later in the twentieth century, comics became more and more mainstream. And then they finally began making comic-based movies and TV shows. The number of people who 'knew' about us - our names, personalities, powers, likes, hates, fears, friends, lovers, and enemies - grew larger. Eventually, that number grew beyond the tens of millions and into the hundreds of millions - and then maybe even into the billions. And eventually, some sort of critical limit was reached and we became a part of the collective unconsciousness that we were just talking about. And because of that, we became real. And that's when we came here."

At first, Logan didn't respond. Then, very carefully, Logan put his bottle back onto the bar.

"Pete," he said quietly. "Did you ever hear about me and Jean?"

Peter nodded warily.

"It never worked out between us," Logan said intensely, his eyes now staring off into the distance. "And maybe it shouldn't have worked out between us - I dunno. And there was another woman, too. Her name was Mariko. We were going to be married, but she died. Like Jean died. Like... like so many others that I've known have died."

Logan paused. Peter waited patiently for him to speak again. Peter had a pretty good idea what Logan was about to say.

"Are you trying to tell me that what I felt about Jean and Mariko, and how much it hurt when they died, wasn't real? It was all just some kind of story?"

There was another long pause as both men looked at one another. Pete used that time to carefully consider what he was going to say next.

"I knew this girl named Gwen Stacey," Peter finally replied. "She died because of me, Logan. In fact, you can make a good argument that I killed her. After Gwen died, it was a long time before I found someone else, and that someone else was MJ. All of that is real where it counts, Logan - in my head and in my heart. But none of that changes what I've just told you."

Logan leaned back in his chair, "Okay. I'm not going to call you a liar. But you're going to have to prove what you've just told me."

Draining the last of his beer, Peter put the bottle on the bar and then stepped off of his bar-stool.

"Let's go," he told Logan.

* * *

As they walked out of the bar and onto the sidewalk, a pretty redhead got out of her newly parked car. Then she paused in front of Peter and Logan in order to fiddle with her purse. As they skirted around the woman, Peter noticed Logan looking at her. There was a thoughtful frown on Logan's face.

"You're the first X-Man to make it here," Peter said in response to the question that Logan hadn't yet asked - and wasn't quite willing to ask.

Logan seemed to take a moment to digest that. And then he looked at Peter and asked, "What about MJ?"

Peter hesitated - and then shook his head, "Supporting characters usually don't come along. There are exceptions, but... Well, she just didn't come here with me."

Logan looked like he was about to say something in response to what Peter had said, but then he stopped himself at the last second.

"I miss her," Peter said quietly. "But I eventually found someone else - you'll be meeting her soon. I know it's a cliche, Logan, but life does go on."

* * *

"I don't fucking believe this," Logan said with an exasperated, disbelieving - and yet somehow amused - shake of his head.

"Language," Clark said reprovingly, but he really didn't mean it. He know what Logan was going through. It wasn't easy - it was never easy. But he was pretty sure that Logan would work his way through it. After all, just as Bruce was the perfect detective, Logan was the perfect tough-guy.

Peter and Logan were standing on the observation deck of the highest skyscraper in Metropolis. They were still in their civies, but Clark was in his instantly recognizable red and blue costume. Clark was "standing" in mid-air, about a yard off the edge of the observation deck and hundreds of yards above the ground, as he talked to the others. A crowd of tourists were whispering among themselves as they kept a respectful distance and watched in complete awe. Their trip to Metropolis was now complete.

Standing next to Peter was a strong-looking, remarkably beautiful woman dressed in a conservative skirt and blouse. She loomed over both Peter and Logan.

Peter called her "Diana", and Logan had the nagging feeling that he should know her. She had been waiting for them at the base of the skyscraper, and the long, hungry kiss that she and Peter exchanged instantly let Logan know what they thought of each other.

At the moment, Diana and Peter were holding hands like a pair of teenagers. For such a wildly mismatched pair, they seemed remarkably comfortable with each other.

Logan sighed and looked at Peter, "Okay, so we're in THAT Metropolis. Now what?"

Peter looked right back at Logan, "This world isn't perfect. People still need us."

"There's some serious flooding in the Yangtze river valley," Clark added seriously. "Diana and I are going to help. Meanwhile, Bruce and Dick are working on a gang-war in Gotham City - if they don't shut it down, innocent people might be caught in the crossfire. But Barbara just sent out a warning that someone is planning to break into the Center for Disease Control's maximum-containment facility in Georgia. They want to make off with disease specimens and sell them on the black-market. We were hoping that you and Peter would look into that one."

Logan shook his head in exasperation. He wasn't sure who all those names referred to, but he recognized just enough.

"Different universe... same old bullshit," Logan growled to nobody in particular.

Clearly amused at Logan's irritability, Peter said, "Hey, Logan, didn't I ever tell you that with great power comes great responsibility?"

Diana laughed and affectionately ruffled Peter's hair. Clark just smiled.

And Logan couldn't help but grin.


End file.
